Baked Blueberry Cheesecake—Prototype 1:
 
At long last! This one would be my first new cheesecake flavor since COVID-19 hit our world. With the pandemic restrictions greatly eased by June of 2022, I produced a blueberry cheesecake early in that month. One of the top reasons for doing so was to have a hopefully useful-enough, blue-looking prototype, which I could utilize in the future for a red-white-and-blue cheesecake—hopefully in time for the following month's Independence Day.
 
3-Cheese Blend (1CT-1NC-1YG):
Prepare ahead of time 16 ounces of yogurt cheese, derived from one 32-ounce container of nonfat yogurt. If the resulting yogurt cheese falls below 16 ounces, add back enough of the whey (that was strained out from the yogurt) to make up the difference. To this yogurt cheese combine 16 ounces of whipped, lowfat cottage cheese and 16 ounces (two 8-ounce packages) of softened Neufchatel cheese ("light cream cheese").

Grease a 9 1/2" (or 9") springform pan, but do not wrap foil around it yet (see below).

Crust:
2 oz. melted, white chocolate
8 oz. (1 cup) 3-cheese blend (see above)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 oz. All-Bran, ground up

Place the resulting mixture in the greased pan and pre-bake without tub at 300 degrees for 20 minutes, then cool enough to comfortably touch at least the pan's upper sidewall.

Batter:
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
40 oz. (5 cups) 3-cheese blend (see above)
2 teaspoons vanilla
12 ounces of blueberries, pureed
1 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum
6 eggs (brown recommended, large)
Optional: 3/8 teaspoon heat-resistant blue food coloring

Expect close to 8 1/2 cups of the resulting batter, but do not add this to the pan all at once. Rather, this needs to be done in four installments. Wrap the pan in foil just before adding the first batter installment (to minimize the foil's disturbance and therefore its leakage risk, do not put it on any earlier).

For each of the first three installments, gently scoop about 2 1/2 cups of batter into the pan, fully covering the surface (here's a tip—scoop small amounts of batter around the edge of the pan, letting this batter flow towards the middle on its own), and then bake this pan with its contents for 25 minutes, at 325 degrees. However, at the end of the third installment's 25 minutes, add on another 30 minutes of baking time, but only at 300 degrees (that's a 55 minute "baking installment"—the first 25 minutes at 325 degrees and the next 30 at 300). For these three installments here, bake with the pan in a tub filled with at least 1/4 to 1/2 inch of boiling water, but (to reduce spillage risks) do not fill the tub all the way at this point, because the whole tub-and-pan assembly is going to need to be removed from the oven (in order to comfortably add contents to the pan) between installments.

After these first three installments are done, there should be about 1 cup of batter left, with 105 minutes of baking time reached at this point (25 minutes for each of the first two installments, and 55 for the third one). Now comes the fourth installment—carefully add the last of this batter on top of the pan's earlier installments, fully coating the entire surface. Next, return the entire pan-and-tub assembly to the oven, with the temperature remaining at 300 degrees. At this point, fill up the tub generously with boiling water. Resume baking for another 105 minutes (based upon usage of a 9 1/2" pan).

Afterward, shut the oven off, and leave its door slightly ajar, with the cheesecake still inside—and in the tub—for an hour. Next, remove the cheesecake from the oven and tub. Continue to cool it down at room temperature for another two hours. After doing so, remove the cheesecake from pan and refrigerate.

Blueberry Cheesecake—Prototype 1

Because this was the first time that I made a blueberry cheesecake, I wanted to see if the blueberries would give the batter a nice, blue appearance without adding any blue food coloring. By omitting this and relying solely on the color from the fruit itself, I saw what seemed to be a light purple appearance in the batter before baking. After the baking and the pan removal, I saw what appeared to be more of a light, brownish-red color in this cheesecake. For a strictly-blueberry, single-flavored one, I was okay with that. But I had plans for a more decorative one—to be included in a forthcoming patriotic, three-color cheesecake. Blue food coloring and July 4th, here we come!

The baking procedure for this cheesecake was based primarily on the 2017 version of Prototype 6 of my banana cheesecakes, whose texture I was somehow happy with. However, I felt that the blueberry cheesecake still came out too soft. I should have given consideration to my pumpkin prototypes as well as to the banana ones. More xanthan gum and/or baking time for the next blueberry cheesecake, if I ever get around to it!

At least the flavor was good—I could taste those blueberries (or at least somewhat).

This one went extremely well when I brought it into The Home Depot for my fellow associates to enjoy. As I checked in on this cheesecake nearly 75 minutes later, it was almost completely gone. There was just a tiny morsel left.
 

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